SETI Project recovers stolen laptop

15 February 2007

A man running the SETI@home application (a distributed computing project sponsored by UC Berkeley) on his wife’s laptop assisted police in locating the laptop after it was stolen last month. The SETI@home database logs IP addresses at each login, and since the SETI@home app runs whenever the screensaver runs, the stolen laptop logged in automatically from the suspect’s home. The man was able to review his account logs on the SETI@home website and report the IP to authorities. “Officers subpoenaed Quest Communications, [the] Internet service provider, to determine the address where the stolen laptop logged onto the Internet. Within days, officers seized the computer and returned it to the rightful owners.”